


That Mercy you to others show, show that Mercy to me

by theharellan



Series: I Have Found a Home (Ian x Solas) [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 15:16:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12750891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theharellan/pseuds/theharellan
Summary: Solas seeks wisdom in an Inquisitor Cadash who chose to forgive Blackwall.





	That Mercy you to others show, show that Mercy to me

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Blackwall's personal quest, in a verse where my Cadash chooses to forgive and rekindle her relationship with Blackwall. Solas is in a relationship with a Lavellan, who is not Inquisitor. This is part of a series of drabbles & roleplays about the relationship between their (non-Inquisitor) Lavellan and Solas as interpreted by myself. This is a repost of a drabble of mine.

“Another letter down,” Thora announced, knocking the freshly sealed envelope into a pile beside her desk, “another dozen more to go.”  


Solas smiled behind the pages of his book. “I expect Ambassador Montilyet did not explain to you the amount of paperwork required when you became Inquisitor, did she?” 

“No, she didn’t.” The dwarf released a weary sigh, already hunching over the next blank sheet of paper with her quill in hand. “If I said something I’m sure she’d have a solution, but this just... well, I’d rather just deal with it myself.” 

“I see. How highly the Inquisitor values me,” he said, with mock offense, “that my presence is not even accounted for.”  


She grinned. “Well, I need my spellchecker, don’t I?” 

Once Solas may have agreed, but as the months passed Thora’s requests became fewer and far between. However, it had become habit for him to sit with her while she wrote by now. He no longer wondered why it was him of all people she asked to sit with her. He carried no title, save the name he had chosen for himself, and put on no airs. Though Josephine was undoubtedly better suited for the role she could not understand the struggles that came with being a self-taught writer. Thora could ask without shame, knowing he, too, had once asked himself the same question. 

The sound of her quill scratching against parchment stopped abruptly, and Solas was already looking at her in anticipation of her question. “How do you spell ‘genuine’?” 

Her answer came to him in Elvhen before anything else, the flat letters of the King’s Tongue did not stick in his mind the same way his mother language did. With his index finger he traced the letters upon his thigh, then said, “G-e-n-u-i-n-e.” Thora wrote as he spelled, her penmanship more deliberate for that handful of letters before it flowed back into her usual loose style. 

“Thanks.” 

Solas hummed in response, watching her a moment before returning to his book. It was good to see her at ease again after the last month’s trials. The shadow of Corypheus loomed over them still, but that threat was nearly a welcome return to form after Blackwall’s abrupt disappearance. They fell into an easy silence, or what could pass for silence between them. Her quill scraped along the coarse parchment, and he whispered the words of his book against his left fist, so that they did not drift from his mind. That afternoon, however, even that trick could not stop his mind from wandering away from the pages. 

“May I ask you a question?” he asked as he closed his book, fingertip slipping between the pages.  


“ _You_ ask _me_ a question?” she teased in return, a good-natured jibe that brough a quirk to the corners of his lips. It was true their relationship was founded on questions, but for so long it had been a one-way street. The Mark had done more than alter Thora’s abilities, it had reshaped her relationship with reality itself. Questions were inevitable. Today, however, it was Solas whose tongue burned with a question begging to be answered. But it did not concern spirits, nor the green scar upon Thora’s left hand-- no. Those Solas understood, better than anyone in this castle could know. It was her he struggled to understand. Thora finished writing the end of her sentence and dipped the tip of her quill in the inkwell, turning her attention to him. A smile graced her features, eyes shining in the sun that streamed in from the windows. “Ask away, but if it’s about the next chapter of _Sword & Shields_ I’m afraid Varric swore me to secrecy... so it’ll cost you.”  


Solas snorted, shaking his head. “In that case I shan’t compromise your integrity.” He looked away, towards her still unmade bed. The frame hung low to the ground, its height carefully measured to match Thora’s short legs. It was clear from the shape of the pillows that she hadn’t slept alone last night. The mattress sank in two places, one distinctively longer than the other. No doubt it was quite the sight seeing Blackwall clamber from the Orzammar-made bed. 

No... not Blackwall, it was Rainier now. 

The revelation had stung him more than he had let on. When the Wardens turned from their purpose, slaying their brothers and sisters, it was Blackwall Solas had considered as the exception. His crimes alone were more than enough to damn him, but he had made a fool of the Inquisition, and of Solas himself. His hands tightened around the book he held, knuckles glowing white. 

“How did you find it in yourself to forgive him?” Their eyes met again, his placid gaze masking his doubts. Thora’s jaw slackened, her expression falling from its cheerful grin. He leaned closer to her, resting his elbows carefully upon her desk, so as not to disturb her papers. “If I have overstepped my bounds,” he added, voice softer than before, “you need not answer.”  


“No, I-- it’s a fair question,” she said, smoothing the wrinkles from her shirt. “I guess I just wasn’t expecting it. To be honest with you, Solas, I wasn’t sure I was going to.”  


“No?” Solas had watched dozens of times as Thora had turned traitors into assets, proving that a merciful choice was not always a weak one. Indeed, swinging an axe was often the easier path.  


“Well, no. I mean... he lied to me. He lied to _you_ , to all of us, and I was upset. Mad as hell. For weeks all I had to do was think about him and-- bam!” She snapped. “Instant Beserker.” Thora smiled half-heartedly at him. “Blood and sweat have a way about hiding tears.” She pushed back her chair, rising to her feet. With her Anchored hand she motioned for him to follow, abandoning the shelter of her room for the sun-bleached balcony. To rest her elbows comfortably on the banister she had to rock forward on her toes, the heel of her hand propping up her chin.  


Solas followed, forgetting his book upon the desk. He stopped short of joining her and lingered in the doorway. From this angle the Frostbacks framed her figure: sky and mountain met beyond her, and he could think of no better image for the Fade-touched dwarf before him. Not even if he had painted it. “But you _did_ forgive him,” he pressed, “why? 

“I doubt there’s a single innocent person here,” she said, shrugging thoughtfully. “If there’s anywhere he can earn forgiveness from the Maker it’s here. Maybe it’s cliché, but Skyhold has always felt like a place for second chances. I’ve felt that way ever since you brought us here.” Thora glanced over her shoulder at him, patting the empty spot beside her on the stone banister. “Don’t you agree?” 

Her observation was more apt than she likely realised, but it failed to answer the true root of his question. Solas moved in beside her, palms pressing flat against the balustrade. The architecture itself ached with potential, seeking rebirth from the ones who now called it home. Grey eyes skirted the courtyard below, their corners crinkling when they found what Solas had not realised he sought: a shock of ginger hair hidden among the garden flowers. The smile was short-lived, lips drawing together as his mind returned to the nature of their conversation. 

“Whether I do or not,” Solas said, each word chosen as deliberately as Thora’s letter, “Mercy alone does not explain your choice.” Even he could deny that Thom Rainier deserved a second chance at life, but a place in her bed? It defied reason. 

Thora was quiet for a long time. Solas shifted from one foot to the other, convinced he had offended her this time. “... You’re asking why I still love him?” 

“Yes.”  


“It isn’t like you to be so indirect.”  


“Love is a delicate topic, even among spirits. There is a reason Love is so rare.”  


She laughed. “I guess you’ve got a point.” She lifted her elbows off the balustrade, rubbing her hands together to stave off the cold that crept into her fingers. Her eyes were trained below, and he wanted to ask if she had seen Thom as he had seen Ian. “I thought about that even longer,” she confessed. “I questioned _every_ moment we had ever spent together, every exchange, everything. I kept asking myself what had been real, who it was I had been in love with all this time.” Today no tears pricked the Inquisitor’s eyes, but he could see the memory of them shining. Her voice strained as she picked at the new wound, careful not to let it bleed. “They were some of the hardest questions I’d ever answered.” 

Solas’s stomach lurched at the possibilities: what other questions dogged her sleep, and would Ian one day ask the same of them? He knew it was real, that it had _always_ been real, but in dreams Solas had felt the ice of Ian’s doubts for himself. His necklace swayed around his neck, the jaw tapping against his chest rhythmically. 

“And what answers did you find?”  


“That it was real.” A complex question with a simple answer, but Thora continued, “Maybe not all real, but real enough for us to start over.” Her teeth worried her lower lip, brow furrowing. “I mean, it’s not like I was blind. I knew he hadn’t always been the man I know today. Paragon Tamar-- I mean, Tamar told me many Wardens had been conscripted as criminals, and it’s easy to feel when someone has something they’re trying to make up for, seeing how I’m one of them.” She rubbed the brand on her cheek unconsciously. “So I asked myself, what did I love about him? And I figured I loved how he fought for what he thought was right, how he had always treated me like I was special, even when I was just an agent. I liked his laugh, and how he spent his free time making toys for kids. And even in his... duplicity, he was still straightforward, right? What he thought, he told me.” Solas recognised the look on her face, the dazed expression that came over even the most stoic of people when they spoke of love. “In the end I decided it was never Warden Blackwall I had loved, it was Thom all along. And now that I knew him I felt I could start over with him.”  


The conversation lulled, allowing Solas to turn over her answer in his head. Her logic was loose, felt rather than reasoned, but that was the nature of love. 

“I see.”  


She quirked a brow. “Do you? Because Cadri doesn’t.” 

“Your cousin has a longer memory than most,” he noted, the surge of fondness he felt at the sound of the other Cadash’s name stymied by the reminder of his deception. Onee day that ire would be aimed at him, and not without cause. “If I were in your place I could not say I would do the same. Say I decided, as you did, that I loved them, no longer trusted them, what then? What is love worth without trust?”  


“No much, I’ll admit. But it’s a second chance, that’s it. I asked for us to start over, not for his hand in marriage. Maybe down the road I’ll figure out you’re right, and my faith in him will never heal, but maybe it will. Just needs time.” Thora tapped her boot against the balcony, mind still racing behind her dark eyes. “I mean, we asked Cole to forgive the man who killed him. I think I can ask myself to forgive, too.”  


“Cole is a spirit.”  


“Then maybe we have more in common than most people think.” Her response was so quick that it must have been second nature.  


“Maybe so.” He smiled proudly to himself, remembering a time when she had not known spirits beyond stories. “Thank you for indulging me, Thora. I know my question was not an easy one.” 

“It’s alright, it was nice talking about it to someone who will just... listen.” She didn’t elaborate, but he could imagine the plethora of opinions she had heard since Thom had returned to Skyhold. Advice was nothing new for the Inquisitor, but for something so personal... it made him momentarily grateful for the invisibility his ears granted him.  


“For what it is worth, I admire your decision.” His gaze returned to down below, where he was unsurprised to find Ian had not moved. Presumably he had fallen asleep, nose twitching as a beetle crawled across his cheek. The image would ordinarily be calming, but that afternoon his thoughts were crowded with reflections on the past, and commitments of the future. “There comes a point in any relationship where the heady feeling of new loves ebbs, and from there a choice must be made: to love, or drift apart.” 

His thoughts were as much for him as they were for her, given voice so they felt tangible in a world where words too often fell flat. Solas paused to consider where he was going before he continued, “I believe for you that choice has already passed. For your sake, I hope you do not come to regret your choice, and that he makes you happy in the coming days. I have scarcely spoken to Rainier since he... returned to the Inquisiton’s folds, and thought my doubts are many I am certain he must feel lucky to have your love, of which anyone ought to feel grateful to know.” 

Thora laughed without shame, leaning over to check him in the hip with her shoulder. “Thanks Solas, the same goes for you.” From the corner of his vision he could see her following his gaze, smiling when she caught what he was still looking at. Down below, Ian turned. “When that time comes for you and Ian, I hope you’ll know what to do.” 

Solas’s deception ran deeper than Thom’s, bringing into question the nature of the stories Ian loved to tell. It was irrational to even imagine telling Ian, just as it was irrational of Thora to forgive her love, but it was no more rational to keep the charade alive. He knew where he stood, and the trust he felt, it was only right that Ian got that same chance to decide for himself with eyes unclouded. 

The wind blew, and his wolf’s jaw beat against his chest once more before he reached up to grasp it firmly in hand. 

“I believe that time has already come.” 


End file.
